Researching and preparing for a new build

[ufoldager]

Hey!

I have been slowly doing some late research and preparations for an upcoming that I will likely purchase and assemble in the beginning of 2018.

I began researching about 1 month ago and noticed that AMD has been on the rise regarding their CPU product line.

Needless to say, I was quite impressed by the price/performance comparison of Ryzen 1800X and Intel's equivalent (which is about twice as costly). At the same time, however, I also read somewhere that AMD was about to launch a new processor called Ryzen Threadripper 1950X.

And now that it has been released, I'm a bit torn about which setup to purchase.

I am either going for an Intel CPU and an nVidia graphics card or an AMD CPU with an AMD graphics card.

But it seems that both Ryzen 1800X and Threadripper 1950X are not very optimized for gaming, but more so aimed at multithreaded applications or whatever, such as creating high quality videos and doing 3D artwork and stuff.

Would the Ryzen CPU be overkill for a gaming rig? I do a lot of graphics too, but mostly in Photoshop and Illustrator. That's about the heaviest applications I use in my daily work.

Any recommendations? Ryzen or not?

Thanks!

 

[USAFRet]

I will likely purchase and assemble in the beginning of 2018

Really, wait until Nov 2017 at the earliest to start on a parts list.

 

[ufoldager]

Yeah, like I said I will likely wait until spring 2018. Mostly because if I do go with Threadripper, it will have stabilized more in its pricing. The same thing goes for the newest graphics cards that are available at that time.

 

[thx1138v2]

Ditto USAFRet. The CPU you choose is going to determine which other major components you will need. I'd wait at least until Nov to let things shake out a bit.

As I understand it, the AMD Threadripper is for many core/may thread applications like video editing, workstation apps, etc. Ryzen will suffice for your editing and gaming. It will have multiple cores/threads but not as many as Threadripper.

The real difference will be the cost. AMD has the edge now at competitive performance to Intel. That could force Intel to lower their prices which might be followed by AMD lowering their prices even further.

For now, work on the other aspects of the build, i.e. SSD/HDD, USB, other ports you want, power requirements and/or graphics. Then when the time comes see which mobo/CPU combination fits your needs and price compare those that fit the bill.

The new AMD processors are a whole new architecture so waiting will also allow time for mobo manufacturers to work out any bugs that might crop up and/or patch BIOSes and/or drivers as needed.

 

[cryoburner]

By the time you plan to build your system, there will be lots of newer components to choose from. Intel will have their new Coffee Lake CPUs, which include i5s and i7s with 6 cores, which will likely be a better choice than Ryzen from a pure gaming perspective due to their higher per-core performance. There will likely be new graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia around that time as well. Currently, cryptomining has messed up graphics card pricing, and things might be better by then as well, so even making a suggestion of current parts this far away might be difficult.

I will say that Threadripper is probably not the best choice for a gaming system though. Its main feature is having lots of cores, which is useful for some professional applications, but not really utilized by games. So, three-quarters of the cores you paid for would just be sitting around doing nothing most of the time. That even goes for most eight-core processors as well. Currently, few games benefit from having more than four cores, and since fewer than 5% of systems used for gaming have a processor with more than that, it will likely be a while before many developers utilize them. Intel is only now about to start making 6 cores the norm for home systems, so going with more than 6 cores might be a waste unless you're planning on using those extra cores to encode a gameplay stream or something.

 

[ufoldager]

By the time you plan to build your system, there will be lots of newer components to choose from. Intel will have their new Coffee Lake CPUs, which include i5s and i7s with 6 cores, which will likely be a better choice than Ryzen from a pure gaming perspective due to their higher per-core performance. There will likely be new graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia around that time as well. Currently, cryptomining has messed up graphics card pricing, and things might be better by then as well, so even making a suggestion of current parts this far away might be difficult.

I will say that Threadripper is probably not the best choice for a gaming system though. Its main feature is having lots of cores, which is useful for some professional applications, but not really utilized by games. So, three-quarters of the cores you paid for would just be sitting around doing nothing most of the time. That even goes for most eight-core processors as well. Currently, few games benefit from having more than four cores, and since fewer than 5% of systems used for gaming have a processor with more than that, it will likely be a while before many developers utilize them. Intel is only now about to start making 6 cores the norm for home systems, so going with more than 6 cores might be a waste unless you're planning on using those extra cores to encode a gameplay stream or something.

This is what I was thinking as well. I read a few reviews about both Ryzen 1800X and the new Threadripper, and it seems that they are far more geared towards content creation (i.e. heavy post processing, video editing, 3D, etc.) that requires a lot of processor power rather than gaming.

I have begun building a monitor list, though, even though it will likely change by the time I will start acquiring the parts in early 2018. Here's the monitor list for reference:

Viewsonic X Series XG2700-4K (AMD FreeSync)
https://www.computersalg.dk/i/1974047/viewsonic-x-series-xg2700-4k-3840-x?utm_source=PriceRunner&utm_medium=PriceRunnerLINK&utm_campaign=PriceRunner

Asus ROG Swift PG27AQ (nVidia G-Sync)
http://cdon.dk/hjemme-elektronik/asus-27-led-rog-swift-pg27aq-g-sync-p35334471?utm_source=pricerunner&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=ASUS+27%22+LED+ROG+Swift+PG27AQ+G-Sync&utm_content=35334471&utm_campaign=pricerunner_PC+-+Monitor+25-27

ASUS PB287Q
https://www.power.dk/pc-og-tilbehoer/monitorer-og-skaerme/pc-skaerme/asus-pb287q-28-pc-skaerm/p-220341/?utm_source=pricerunner&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pricerunner

SAMSUNG S34E790C
https://www.proshop.dk/Skaerm/Samsung-34-Skaerm-SE790C-Series-S34E790C-Sort-4-ms-/2469736?utm_source=pricerunner&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pricesite

Samsung U28E590D (AMD FreeSync)
https://www.power.dk/pc-og-tilbehoer/monitorer-og-skaerme/pc-skaerme/samsung-lu28e590-28-4k-skaerm-1ms/p-248834/?utm_source=pricerunner&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pricerunner

LG 34UC79G-B (AMD FreeSync)
https://www.proshop.dk/Skaerm/LG-34-Skaerm-34UC79G-B- Sort-5-ms-AMD-FreeSync/2569561?utm_source=pricerunner&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=pricesite

 

[ufoldager]

UPDATED

CPUs

• 
  Intel Core i7-8700K
  Intel Core i5-8400 ::: Best Choice? :::

Motherboards

• 
  Gigabyte Z370 AORUS-Gaming-7
  MSI Z370 GODLIKE-GAMING ::: Should be coupled with i7 8700K :::
  ASUS PRIME Z370-P
  ASUS ROG MAXIMUS-X HERO
  ASUS TUF Z370-PRO GAMING
  ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-E ::: Best Choice? :::
  EVGA Z370-LIGHTSABER

RAM [Storage]

• 
  G.SKILL TridentZ RGB 3600 Mhz DDR4 [32 GB]

Boot/System Drive [Storage]

• 
  WD Blue 3D SSD M.2 [1TB]
  Samsung 960 Pro M.2 [512 GB] ::: Best Choice? :::
  Plextor M8Pe [PX-1TBM8PeG]
  Crucial MX500 [1TB] ::: Best Price :::

Internal [Storage] Drive

• 
  TBD

Graphics Card (Maybe SLI?)

• 
  ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti AMP Extreme Core Edition ::: INSANE PRICE ATM! :::
  EVGA GTX 1080 Ti

I am tempted to go with a solid SLI setup, but can I achieve a high framerate in 4K on both a 28" monitor and 55-65" TV screen without extreme power consumption? The electricity bills in my country are crazy AF, so I am not sure that 2 cards is the best idea.

Any thoughts on my graphics card question and on this list overall? The list isn't complete yet. I am still using it for research and discussions until all components have been found.

Look forward to hear your suggestions and ideas or whatever!

 

[cryoburner]

Yeah, graphics card pricing is pretty rough right now. Back when you first posted, the pricing of upper mid-range cards was bad, but at the high end, the GTX 1080 and 1080 Ti weren't affected much. Since then, the prices of cards had been slowly working their way almost back to where they had been when they launched, until around the new year, when they suddenly took off again. Now prices and availability are worse than ever before, and even the high-end cards are affected, with most selling for double their launch prices around here.

AMD and Nvidia still haven't announced a new generation of graphics cards yet either, perhaps hoping to hold out until prices have stabilized more, and until GDDR6 VRAM production is in full swing. At this point, the current generation of cards from both companies are over a year and a half old. AMD's RX500 series cards are basically higher-clocked RX400 series cards, which launched in June of 2016. Nvidia is likewise still on their Pascal architecture from May of 2016. Technically, AMD launched RX Vega last fall, but it didn't compete in terms of gaming performance with the 1080 Ti, and the pricing and availability of the cards have been poor since launch due to their effectiveness at mining. We will most likely see a new series of cards from AMD and Nvidia this year, but those are likely still a number of months away.

On the positive side, Coffee lake is out, and should be a good choice for a high-end gaming build. Between the i7-8700k and the i5-8400, the 8700k is clocked higher and unlocked for overclocking, in addition to having Hyperthreading enabled, allowing it to handle up to 12 threads more efficiently. It is, of course, quite a bit more expensive though, and the Hyperthreading probably won't help much in most games for the near future. There's also the i5-8600K to consider, which doesn't have Hyperthreading, but is still clocked higher than the 8400 and unlocked for overclocking, which could make it a good option. If you compare the 8600k and 8700k at UserBench, you can see that overclocked performance should be practically identical between the two when loaded with up to 6 threads, after which Hyperthreading will help the i7...
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-8600K-vs-Intel-Core-i7-8700K/3941vs3937

Again, I don't suspect that many games will utilize enough threads to benefit from the i7's Hyperthreading any time soon, unless perhaps someone is live-streaming their gameplay with a CPU-based encoder. The 8400's lower clocks and limited overclocking capability keep it further behind the others by comparison, at least in UserBench's synthetic benchmarks...
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-8600K-vs-Intel-Core-i5-8400/3941vs3939
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-8700K-vs-Intel-Core-i5-8400/3937vs3939

In actual games though, your performance will likely be limited by your graphics card more often than not, particularly at high resolutions like 4K, so going with the 8400 probably wouldn't impact performance that much. An 8600K or 8700K could help reduce slowdowns at times when the CPU is holding back performance though, particularly if you plan to use the same CPU for at least a few years, at which point there will likely be games that are more demanding on the CPU than there are now, which could benefit more from an overclock.

I believe multi-GPU setups aren't supported as well as they once were, so generally a single higher-end card is recommended. And of course, with prices like they currently are, it's probably not an ideal time to invest more than you have to in graphics cards. If you want to ensure good performance at high settings, another alternative to a 4K screen would be a high refresh rate (144/165Hz) 1440p screen. One advantage of a more moderate resolution like that is you can get higher frame rates for visibly smoother motion, and even in graphically demanding titles you should be able to maintain smoother performance with the graphics settings maxed. At 4K, even a 1080 Ti will require some settings to be scaled back a little to maintain 60fps in certain demanding games, and if you plan on keeping the card for a few years, future titles will probably get even more demanding.

 

[ufoldager]

Such valuable and extensive feedback, cryoburner. Thanks a lot for that!

I am going to go with the Intel Core i7-8700K CPU for now. This might change, because as we discussed around the topic of the current status on the graphics card market, I might wait another 2-6 months to see how the market evolves and whether or not Nvidia releases information on a new card generation.